The Aftermath of the Moonrise Festival's Cancellation, So Far

We're four days removed from the abrupt cancellation of the Moonrise Festival, and we're honestly not sure what to say. With any influx of cash and eyes on the dance music scene, you have to expect woes to move alongside the wins, right? Moonrise's downfall has unfolded via social media at a wild pace, and most of it has been negative... kind of like Baltimore's perception of the EDM scene (which mirrors Wendy Williams' perception), yet Baltimore has a great reason.

No matter how you slice it, Starscape fucked things up. If the people outside of the scene already believe that we're nothing but drug-addicted fiends for loud, repetitive music, and you serve that to them on a silver platter? The flack is getting thrown at Steez Promo and the Moonrise Festival promoters, yet the city of Baltimore are the ones saying Steez didn't get all of the permits in order. How many permits are needed to throw a festival in Baltimore? How many did Steez have, and when did they find out that they didn't have all of the required paperwork roughly three weeks before the massive two-day festival?

In hindsight, should Steez have waited to get the permit situation in order BEFORE promoting and selling tickets for Moonrise? Probably. In the Internets age, though, people want info now, and you have to make sure your parties are promoted early enough for people to make plans (which can involve everything from booking flights and hotels to taking time off of work). We can't fault them for pushing the party... but the onus is on them to get their permits squared away in a timely fashion.

We're now in the aftermath of the Moonrise Festival's cancellation, and Steez is moving to rectify the situation. Money is being refunded back to those who purchased tickets, and Steez is working at organizing make-up events (including this recently-announced June 8 show with Pretty Lights at Baltimore's Pier Six).They even inquired about setting up dunk tanks, with party people getting the chance to vent frustrations by dunking Steez employees. Infected Mushroom and Lotus have been booked to play to the Baltimore Soundstage show. A Change.org petition to have Baltimore reconsider their stance currently has over 1400 signatures, although it needs 5,536 total to do, well, whatever they think it will do. There's not been any talk about Baltimore reconsidering their stance on Moonrise, but some ragers just need to make their voices heard.

No matter what they do to make up for it, as you can see above, Steez has a lot of work to do to get their name cleared with the ravers out there. Some are looking for other festivals to hit around that time, while others are looking to the future, wondering if this is the beginning of the "EDM bubble" bursting (DAD says slow down and see where we're at in six months). Whatever the case may be, this is a sore spot for all parties involved, and just like the gaping Starscape wound, this Moonrise fiasco will take time to truly heel.